


Wine and Politics

by shinobi93



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a DoSAC event, Emma decides she's just about bored enough to chat to a hack. She did not expect to actually enjoy it.</p><p>She definitely did not expect it to turn into a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wine and Politics

**Author's Note:**

> For alichay and thehoneyinthelion, who wanted Emma/Angela fic. Let's face it, they'd be terrifying together, in a good, would-have-all-the-insults way.

Emma’s heard of Angela Heaney; everyone who’s ever spent more than a week in politics has. The hack to watch out for, some say, those burnt by her stories. Others laugh her off as a tame wolf, _careerist_ they mutter with scorn. _Standard, Mail,_ anywhere that’ll take her. Emma personally wonders how they think they all got there. Sheer fucking principles, of course. She herself has taken enough shit, for her party choice or her relative modernity within that fucking party or the fact a woman dares play with the boys. When the latter is hurled at her, usually by way of snide remarks that made her want to gag on her own tonsils, she often gives up on elaborate responses and opts for a swiftly administered middle finger. Taking shit is all part of politics, so Emma does not hold any of the muttered remarks against Angela.

This doesn’t mean she wants to become best fucking friends with the journalist who has just walked into the room, talking to Adam Kenyon because _The Daily Mail_ is clearly a bond you share forever. Women don’t get special treatment from Emma simply because their chromosomes make them a tiny amount less likely to call her a ‘political whore’, which she can’t help but think is the least imaginative insult she has ever heard (the pathetic advisor who called her such suffered a breakdown a few months later, which could be karma or could be the fact she mentioned, in passing of course, a few rumours about him to a couple of selected hacks). Women can be just as nasty as the men, but she sees far fewer of them in politics, so it’s the men who end up with the greater scorn. It’s the men’s fault, really.

The event isn’t thrilling her and she’s not quite loyal enough to pretend it is. DoSAC drinks: what a farce. Still, the coalition isn’t two years old and the cracks are showing faster than when she knocked her mother’s favourite china teacup against the old oak sideboard. They need some better publicity. Peter is standing to one side, Phil at his elbow like a flapping mother, whilst the press linger nearby, taking turns to bait him with questions that’ll make him seem both out of touch and trying too hard. It won’t be difficult. She turns her hair and spots that Adam has moved on from his _Mail_ buddy and is now trailing Fergus, the junior minister of ineptitude. Emma wonders when they’ll announce their engagement, before deciding she’s just bored enough to try taunting a lone hack.

‘Wine’s a bit shit, isn’t it?’ she says as an opener. Angela’s face doesn’t move an inch.

‘Didn’t you provide it?’ Angela replies. Luckily Emma expected this.

‘No, they get somewhat a bit lower than me to sort out the drinks. Fergus Williams, in fact.’

Angela laughs at that, and although Emma’s not sure whether it’s at her joke or at the divided department that makes such jokes, she feels accomplished regardless. They unnecessarily introduce themselves, make small talk about the event as expected at these mundane excuses for polite schmoozing, which diverges into snide jokes about everyone there once they realise neither can be bothered with the niceties. The taunting plan isn’t quite working out.

‘Didn’t invite Agriculture?’ Angela asks, grinning over her next glass of the shitty wine.

‘We didn’t want the department smelling like pig shit,’ smirks Emma. ‘Did you see their recent press thing-’

‘-from a pig farm?’ Angela completes. ‘Of course. Boss put the caption “what a load of manure” under a photo of the minister giving a talk. Remind me why I work for the cunts?’

‘Because it’s for the wankers or back where you started,’ Emma says. It’s unclear, even to her, who she’s talking about. Not that she likes the other side of course, they’re all indecisive tossers who hide their prejudices under more layers of paint, but she’s never quite sure about her own party either. Still, she doesn’t care. It’s getting somewhere that matters, not the exact fucking details.

Eventually they move off, Angela clearly to do some press loitering and Emma goes towards Peter and Phil to check up on the faux pas of the evening. Phil stutters uncontrollably about some journalist asking Peter what he thinks about Facebook and Peter giving a long speech about photographic identification before being told, through hurried whispers, that it wasn’t some new social affairs scheme to document people but was, in fact, a website.

‘Leave you alone for one fucking second,’ snaps Emma, but she would have probably reacted like Phil too, just with less hair flicking. She won’t admit that though. ‘Just...drink wine and smile. Not that much, you look smug.’

‘So do you,’ says Peter, but she’s walking off, washing her hands of the minister for the evening. She grabs another glass of the piss she wouldn’t have put it past Fergus to have chosen it’s so bad (he himself appears to be drinking it happily, saying awkward shit to journalists and minor political players whilst Adam grins falsely and dives in whenever Fergus bounces more than he says proper words, a phenomenon Emma never gets tired of laughing at).

Angela appears by her side, putting down an empty glass.

‘Do I win something for finishing that?’

‘An invitation to leave and find a pub and some Cabernet Sauvignon?’ Emma offers before she realises what she’s doing. Angela can take that any way she wants, she thinks, but hopefully in the right way.

‘Lead the fucking way.’

They leave separately, division between media and politics working well, and meet up outside the door. Nobody cares who is leaving a DoSAC event; not even the people there. They’re all wishing it could be them, glancing at their watches and wondering how much of a time commitment this should be. Emma had nodded at Phil, which back at their flat she’ll claim meant ‘I’m leaving now because it’s all going fine’, but he probably took as ‘well done you’re the better advisor’. A sacrifice she’ll take.

They settle on a pub a few streets away, busy but not heaving on a weekday night. Angela buys a bottle of wine, refusing Emma’s money when she offers, and they start drinking it with relish, appreciating the lack of supermarket own brand label. Their chat continues from before, drifting from general mockery to occasional references to their own lives. Emma knows, vaguely, that it is risky to talk to a journalist like this without being entirely certain of their motives, but the cheap piss has gone to her head and she keeps catching Angela’s glance by accident during the conversation. It’s not so much been flirting as shared political hatred, but it counts.

With only a glass left in the bottle, they hit the elephant in the room, killing it swiftly and painlessly (Emma wonders if they’d be as efficient taking down Westminster).

‘So, Ollie Reeder, shared mistake eh?’ Angela says, trained to bring things up.

‘Everyone has them,’ Emma replies.

‘True. As slimeball mistakes go, he’s not the worst. A fucking idiot, at least.’

They both laugh, agreed on that. Subject closed: neither of them care. It’s unlikely they’d be where they both are, professionally, if they did. Emma brings up the Opposition’s recent attempt at all getting simultaneous, not particularly different haircuts, and they’re back to scathing comments about Ben Swain’s hairline and whether it affects the party’s policies. The glance-catching becomes less accidental.

The bottle’s empty; last orders already called. Emma knows she must get up in the morning as usual, go to work and ineffectually advise Peter, bicker with Phil and insult Adam at least twice before the day is over. Office habits.

‘We’d better-’ she starts, never planning to finish the sentence. A gesture towards leaving is enough. They stand, put on coats and scarves, and make comments about the better quality of wine. Emma takes a moment to notice Angela’s hair, the brilliance of it, before turning to the door. Outside, they walk a few steps away from the front lights of the pub, then pause for a second to let the awkwardness leave, fuck off back to the room where the evening began to linger amongst the leftover bags of nibbles and used glasses. Then, they are kissing, hands grabbing at one another to steady themselves. They break apart, grinning like they’ve won something.

‘Can you call it a date if it started at a DoSAC drinks thing?’ Emma asks, slightly breathless.

‘I don’t know. Probably not. We’ll need to rectify that, of course.’

‘Free at the weekend?’

‘I can be. Drinks and laughing at everyone else?’

‘Sold.’

Emma sits in the cab on her way home, ready to yell at Phil even though he’ll have no idea why she sounds more gleeful than usual in her insults, and thinks on the evening. Wine and politics: a good accidental date.


End file.
